Posted on 10/24/2006 7:13:15 PM PDT by flyingtabby
BEIJING (Reuters) - Humans are stripping nature at an unprecedented rate and will need two planets' worth of natural resources every year by 2050 on current trends, the WWF conservation group said on Tuesday.
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Populations of many species, from fish to mammals, had fallen by about a third from 1970 to 2003 largely because of human threats such as pollution, clearing of forests and overfishing, the group also said in a two-yearly report.
"For more than 20 years we have exceeded the earth's ability to support a consumptive lifestyle that is unsustainable and we cannot afford to continue down this path," WWF Director-General James Leape said, launching the WWF's 2006 Living Planet Report.
"If everyone around the world lived as those in America, we would need five planets to support us," Leape, an American, said in Beijing.
People in the United Arab Emirates were placing most stress per capita on the planet ahead of those in the United States, Finland and Canada, the report said.
Australia was also living well beyond its means.
The average Australian used 6.6 "global" hectares to support their developed lifestyle, ranking behind the United States and Canada, but ahead of the United Kingdom, Russia, China and Japan.
"If the rest of the world led the kind of lifestyles we do here in Australia, we would require three-and-a-half planets to provide the resources we use and to absorb the waste," said Greg Bourne, WWF-Australia chief executive officer.
Everyone would have to change lifestyles -- cutting use of fossil fuels and improving management of everything from farming to fisheries.
"As countries work to improve the well-being of their people, they risk bypassing the goal of sustainability," said Leape, speaking in an energy-efficient building at Beijing's prestigous Tsinghua University.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Since wrestling is fake this study must be fake too... Although I'll be in my 70's by 2050 so I'm cool with it.
Or the Ford Foundation that pays them.
yitbos
I read the first sentence and thought this was Scrappleface or The Onion. No need to read further.
The yield potential for crops is easily many times what it is today. Yields for corn have nearly doubled in the last 20 years, wait until genetic engineering starts to be affect yields.
Same for livestock.
Of all organizations, the WWF should know that no species can live beyond the carrying capacity of its habitat and when a population reaches that carrying capacity, nature will enforce a rise in mortality rates to drive the numbers downward. The human population may experience some really bad times as it approaches the limits on its resources but I trust natural controls over socialistic controls. Nature discriminates only on the basis of each individual's survivability. A socialist government sees individual strength as something to be dispensed with.
As soon as rich liberals stop using limousines and private jets I will sell my pinball machines, buy a prius and live in a commune.
Hmm? Chrysler may be a bad example of making it.
Sure, and the mass famines Malthus predicted wiped out millions, and we ran out of gold in 1981 and mercury in 1985 and lead and copper in 1993 and usable land in 2000 just like the Club of Rome predicted.
I still haven't figured out what percentage of the left are crooks and charlatans and what percentage of them are good-hearted folk who don't understand economics at all.
As he says "I have understood the population explosion intellectually for a long time..." .
Unfortunately, the predictions in The Population Bomb did not prove accurate, that is why is was necessary the switch to the "sky is falling" environmental hoaxes.
Isn't the WWF like anti-human or something? Somewhat akin to Greenpeace, Siera Club, etc. etc.
There will always be plenty of cute animals to eat.
Ever drive thru Kansas?
Malthus was wrong and he is still wrong.
One of the best debunkers of this crap was economist Julian Simon. You can read his book online for free The Ultimate Resource II:People, Materials, and Environment
"Simon gives extensive evidence that, contrary to environmentalist predictions, "length of life and health are increasing, supplies of food and other natural resources are becoming ever more abundant, and pollutants in our environment are lessening." He shows that "the world's problem is not too many people, but lack of political and economic freedom."
How much for a match between the WWF leader and the big show?
But to answer your question, the wrestlers probably know as much about it as this bunch of environmental extremists. They're tree hugging animal rights types. I'd trust the wrestlers over them any day.
Paul Ehrlich wrote "The Population Bomb"
What a bomb that one was. Where is Ehrlich now? He's currently the Bing Professor of Population Studies in the department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University. Uh, Stanford, are you are of your mind?
Though I didn't know about the WWE thingy ... I haven't watched wrestling since the days of the Sheik and Pepper Gomez ... I did know that we weren't really talking about wrestling ... it was a joke ;<)
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